EXPRESS: Alice in Wonderland: Consumer Peril in Navigating the Antipoverty Service Ecosystem

Abstract

We explore the U.S. “antipoverty service ecosystem,” an assemblage of institutions, organizations, policies, norms, and various actors that serve people living below the federal poverty line and those designated as ALICE, “Asset-Limited, Income Constrained, Employed,” colloquially known as the working poor which accounts for 42 percent of the U.S. population. We conceptually map an antipoverty service ecosystem, which we conceptualize as an antipoverty landscape, the geographic and relational space consumers must navigate to secure resources adequate for development and flourishing. Employing a service ecosystem framework, we direct attention to features of the antipoverty landscape that enable or impede their resource pursuits. We map three key dimensions of the antipoverty landscape: (1) the types of resources people pursue, (2) the types of access to resources they can obtain, and (3) the types of resource providers operating in the setting. Variation on these dimensions forms a basis for different relationships to resource providers. We conclude by discussing an Antipoverty Policy Matrix that illustrates how current governmental, regulatory, and corporate policies provide resources embedded in relationships that under some conditions perpetuate structural inequities.